People profiles
Thomas Maes
Professional Background
- Over 20 years of international experience in larger and smaller companies across the world, of which 15 years in IT management, CTO and CIO positions in the UK and Switzerland.
- Additionally, 8 years as a senior manager and director at KPMG, Arthur Andersen and Deloitte & Touche in London, focusing on business-IT alignment and IT strategy and execution.
- Based in Switzerland.
- Founder of Illutas, providing IT strategy, organization and performance advice.
- BBA from Nijenrode University, the Netherlands and a MSc in Logistics from Cranfield University in the UK.
- Published several articles and methodologies on IT performance and maturity assessments and IT business-enablement.
- Native Dutch, English, German and French
M&A Skills & Expertise
- Business – IT strategic, architectural and operational alignment
- IT maturity and performance assessment
- IT organizational structure, governance and processes assessment and improvement, including agile, bi-modal and related approaches.
- IT finance and investment management, IT supplier and operational management, including outsourcing and service management.
- Sectors: Retail, Manufacturing, Travel, Logistics, Telecommunication, IT, Professional Services, Energy,
- Focus Areas: IT strategy, digitalization, information-driven (enterprise) architecture, value chain enablement, multi-channel management
- Portfolio, program and project management of complex projects
- Implementation and change management
Project Highlights
- Strategy, development and implementation of digitalization program for order and business process management at a major bank in Switzerland.
- Methodologies for digitalization strategies.
- Consolidation of 3 disparate IT operating groups in Scandinavia, Switzerland and Asia, including IT strategy, architecture, governance, organization and operational management for the Birgma-Biltema-group with 5000 employees and 120 stores in Scandinavia.
- Improve the portfolio management processes and investment performance management for the CHF300m IT Project Portfolio at Swisscom.
- Restructuring at Alstom, resulting in a 10% cost reduction year on year.
- Setup of a new IT services co in the UK, providing CRM services to over 100 high-end hospitality customers such as the Dorchester, Ritz, Plaza Athenée, Beverly Hills and Kempinski hotels.
- Application rationalization at Royal Mail UK with over 1200 applications, resulting in significant savings.